Amy Hempel

Infobox Writer


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name = Amy Hempel
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birthdate = birth date and age|1951|12|14
birthplace = Chicago, Illinois, United States
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occupation = Short story writer, essayist, journalist, professor
nationality = American
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genre = Fiction
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website =__NOTOC__Amy Hempel (born December 14, 1951) is an American short story writer, journalist, and university professor at Brooklyn College. Hempel, who was born in Chicago, Illinois, is a former student of Gordon Lish, in whose workshop she wrote several of her first stories. Lish was so impressed with her work that he helped her publish her first collection, "Reasons to Live" (1985), which includes "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried", the first story she ever wrote. [cite web|url= http://www.powells.com/authors/hempel.html|date= April 27, 2006|accessdate= 2007-10-15| title= " Forty-Eight Ways of Looking at Amy Hempel" by Dave Weich|work= Powells.com] Originally published in "TriQuarterly" in 1983, "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" is one of the most extensively anthologized stories of the last quarter century.

Hempel has produced three other collections: "At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom " (1990), which includes the story “The Harvest”; "Tumble Home" (1997); and "The Dog of the Marriage" (2005). "The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel" (2006) gathers all the stories from the four earlier books. She co-edited (with Jim Shepard) "Unleashed–Poems by Writers’ Dogs" (1995), which includes contributions by Edward Albee, John Irving, Denis Johnson, Gordon Lish, Arthur Miller, and many others. She writes articles, essays, and short stories for such publications as "Vanity Fair," "Interview," "Bomb", "GQ," "ELLE," "Harper's Magazine," "The Quarterly", and "Playboy". Hempel has participated in The Juniper Summer Writing Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst's MFA Program for Poets & Writers.

Generally termed a minimalist writer, along with Raymond Carver and Mary Robison, Hempel is one of a handful of writers who has built a reputation based solely on short fiction. Chuck Palahniuk wrote of her work:

She lives in New York and is Program Coordinator of the graduate Fiction-Writing Program at Brooklyn College. [Citation
title = Brooklyn College MFA Program; The Fiction-Writing Program
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url = http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/graduate/mfa/fiction.htm
accessdate = ] Additionally, she teaches fiction at The New School, in the Low-Residency MFA Program in Writing at Bennington College, [cite web|url= http://www.bennington.edu/acad_grad_writ_fac_hempela.asp|date= Undated|accessdate= 2007-10-29| title= Core Faculty: Amy Hempel, Fiction|work= Low-Residency MFA in Writing: The Bennington Writing Seminars] and in the creative writing program at Princeton University. [cite web|url= http://www.princeton.edu/~visarts/cwr/faculty.html|date= Undated|accessdate= 2007-10-29| title= 2007-08 Faculty|work= The Program in Creative Writing at Princeton University]

Awards

Hempel is a recipient of the Hobson Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2006 she was awarded a USA Fellowship grant by United States Artists, an arts advocacy foundation dedicated to the support and promotion of America's top living artists. She won the Ambassador Book Award in 2007 for her "Collected Stories", which was also named as one of the The New York Times' Ten Best Books of the year. In 2008 she won the Rea Award for the Short Story.

Bibliography

* "Reasons to Live" (1985)
* "At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom" (1990)
* "Tumble Home" (1997)
* "The Dog of the Marriage" (2005)
* "The Collected Stories" (2006)

References

External links

* [http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2294505.htm Transcript of interview] with Ramona Koval, The Book Show, ABC Radio National
* [http://chuckpalahniuk.net/interviews/authors/amy-hempel-interview Interview of Amy Hempel by by Rob Hart]
* [http://www.pifmagazine.com/SID/413/ Full text of "The Harvest" by Amy Hempel]
* [http://moreview.com/content/dynamic/view_text.php?text_id=508 Full text of "Today Will Be A Quiet Day" by Amy Hempel]
* [http://www.nerve.com/fiction/hempel/offertory/ Full Text of "Offertory" by Amy Hempel]
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* [http://www.laweekly.com/index.php?option=com_lawcontent&task=view&id=3590&Itemid=9 Chuck Palahniuk comments on Amy Hempel's writing in general and specifically The Harvest]
* [http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/Public/EncounterUSAFellows/index.cfm United States Artists Video]

Persondata
NAME = Hempel, Amy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = Short story writer
DATE OF BIRTH = December 14, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH = Chicago, Illinois, United States
DATE OF DEATH =
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